"No. No no no, Rachel. Not happening. Absolutely not." Puck honestly could not believe Rachel actually expected him to do that.

He had planned to lay into her for not telling him about what was going on between her and Finn, but when she had called him the previous afternoon, something in her voice stopped him. She had proceeded to tell him pretty much everything Finn had told him a few days before, adding her own feelings and insights at times. Hearing her side of the story, not that there were sides really, there wasn't even an actual fight, completed the picture in his mind of what was happening to his two best friends.

"But Noah," Rachel began, pleading.

"Look Rachel, I get what you're trying to do here, and I support it, but this is where I draw the line."

"Noah, you promised to help me!"

"And I will help you Rachel. I'll sit here with my guitar and put my phone on speaker and play this song a million times. But I am not singing with you. That's just … not right."

"Oh Noah, don't be so immature. We've sung together a hundred times. It's my job for goodness sake."

"Yeah, but this is different. This is a duet, a very intimate duet. I won't do it." Puck sighed, exasperated. Rachel was smart, she should understand this, but she was also hard-headed. When she didn't want to get something through her head, she just didn't.

"Oh Noah, the song isn't about sex, there's nothing dirty about it. And besides, what about 'Need You Now,' we did that duet together, and it's about a couple of exes getting drunk and wanting to hook up!"

Puck was glad they were talking on the phone and she couldn't see him roll his eyes at her. "First off, 'Need You Now' was a long time ago, and that was different. That was a popular song at the time, and besides, you only asked me to sing it with you to make Finn jealous," Rachel blushed when her friend called her out on her manipulation. "But more importantly, I didn't say it was a dirty or sexy song. I said it's an intimate song. This isn't like some song off the radio or one of your plays Rachel. This song, those words, they're your life, your marriage. There is no way in hell I am going to sit here and sing a song with my best girl friend that was written for her, about her, by her husband. Oh yeah, and said husband just happens to be my best guy friend." Puck paused, waiting for her response. He was expecting a lot more argument, but he refused to give in on this one. "Still there Rachel?"

"Yeah … I'm here," Rachel stammered. Hot tears pricked at her eyes and her faced burned with embarrassment. Noah was completely right. Now that he had pointed it out to her, she felt that she had betrayed Finn by even thinking about singing that song with another man. She had just wanted to rehearse, to make sure that the song would be perfect, but she reminded herself that her constant need for perfection was one of the reasons she was in this mess in the first place. If she spent more time at home and less time practicing for one thing or another, she wouldn't be begging Noah to help her put her marriage back together. She sniffed and pulled herself back together. "You're right Noah, I'm sorry. It was completely inappropriate for me to ask you to sing with me. I truly appreciate whatever help you're willing to give me."

"You're my best friends Rachel, I'll do whatever I can to help you guys. So, why don't I just play through once and you just listen, maybe read over the words on your end." Puck set his cell phone to speaker and plucked out the notes of the song Rachel had sent him yesterday.

"Noah, wow, that was, well that was great. I mean, since yesterday, great job." Puck smirked to himself, making sure not to let Rachel hear him scoff. She didn't know that her husband had sent him the same song three days before, and he'd been working on perfecting it since. "Umm, ok then. Well, obviously I have to sing the first lines." Rachel moved on quickly to laying out her plan.

"No, the first lines are his. I mean, just, those lyrics. It needs to be him," Puck contradicted Rachel, knowing it wasn't the safest move to make. Still, he knew the song and he knew his friend, and Finn would want to sing those words to her. "In fact, you should let him have the whole first verse, and just come in for the back-up hook." He could imagine her face when he said the words 'back-up.' "Just imagine," he began, already working on damage control, "how good the contrast of your voice will sound under his."

Rachel had balked when she heard 'back-up,' but she had to admit he was right about the way it would sound. She still wasn't sure, though. "But, well, how will he know what to do? If I don't lead in, I mean."

"Dude's gonna know his own song, Rach. Come on, give him a little credit."

"I know he's not an idiot, Noah!" Rachel snapped at him. She knew a lot of people, especially people they had gone to high school with, thought Finn was a little dim, but she had never been one of them. He was just naïve, and innocent, and she loved him even more for it, and she didn't appreciate her friend insinuating otherwise.

"Geez Berry, chill. It was a joke, I didn't mean anything by it. No need to go all crazy on me."

"Hudson," she grumbled quietly.

"What?" Puck asked. One minute she was practically screaming at him and the next she was talking so low he could hardly hear her. Why was he friends with this girl again? She was totally crazy half the time.

"I said," she started, sounding slightly defeated, "my name isn't Berry, it's Hudson." Puck realized his mistake. He had called her Berry plenty of times, even since she had married his best friend, but he should have known that using her maiden name under the circumstances would be upsetting to her.

"You're right, I'm sorry. Habit I guess," he thought he heard her mumble something that sounded like 'it's ok.' "Look Rachel, you know he loves you, right? I mean, he really loves you, you're his life."

"I don't know, I guess so," she sounded so broken, much like Finn had sounded before. "It's just so hard now. I never would have imagined us like this. And we can't even sit down and talk about it, because we both work long, weird hours, and then when his work day is over and he's closed the store, he still doesn't come home for another two hours or more. I don't know how to take that."

"Oh God Rachel, please don't tell me you think he's cheating on you." Puck had tensed at what it seemed she may have been suggesting. He knew better. She knew better. Right? She had to know better.

"No! That's not what I was thinking at all." Rachel gasped, shocked that he would even mention such a thing. "Why? Has he said something to you? Do you know something Noah?" She had started pacing the room and her hands were shaking. That thought really had never even crossed her mind, Finn was the most honest person she knew, but if her friend was bringing it up, did that mean something?

Puck instantly regretted his question. It really didn't seem that Rachel had even considered the idea, and now he had put it into her head. 'Me and my stupid ass mouth,' he cursed himself silently. "No Rachel, he hasn't said anything. And he never will say anything to me about cheating on you, because he never will cheat on you. Please tell me you get that."

"I do, I get that. He's too decent a person to cheat. But …" she hesitated, not sure about what she was getting ready to say. "Sometimes I think that might be easier. I mean, at least I would understand it." Puck smacked his forehead with his hand. Seriously, someone remind him why he was friends with her again. Girl was straight-up bat shit crazy.

"Are we really having this conversation right now? I mean really, cause that is probably one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard."

"I'm completely serious right now Noah. I would actually be able to understand if he were cheating on me. If he found some other girl, one who was prettier and better than me, who could make him happier than me, I'd get that." Puck wanted to scream at her. He wanted to yell that Finn thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, that the last time he had talked to his friend all he could talk about was how happy she made him and how awful he felt for making her upset. But that wasn't his place. "But I don't get why he would rather sit in an empty store for two hours, doing God knows what, than come home to me. I don't know what I'm doing wrong." Puck could hear the tightness in her voice, the sign that she would start crying again at any second.

"Rachel, come on, you're not doing anything wrong. That's his job, you know. It's his store. He's just … keeping an eye on things, making sure everything stays good." Part of him wanted to agree with her, to tell her that it didn't make sense for Finn to stay at work so much longer than necessary when he had an awesome wife at home waiting for him. But he felt like he would be breaking some bro-code or something by betraying his boy like that. He needed to change the subject, to get back on track before he crossed a line or said too much. He wanted to help them, to give them the push they needed to get straightened out, but he didn't want to do the work for them. If they didn't do it themselves it wouldn't really fix anything. "Ok, I know you don't have a lot of time before you have to get to the theater, and we should get this whole song thing figured out. We decided Finn should do the first verse and then you'll come in with the back-up. I think it would be good if you take the next verse. Just jump right in and hopefully he'll get the hint and let you take it from there. You two have sung together plenty of times, he should be able to follow your lead." Puck played the song a few more times with Rachel working out the arrangement, feverishly making notes on her copy of the music. Puck also suggested that although the song didn't sound bad as an acoustic, it might sound better, fuller, with a drum to hold up the beat. She hadn't thought of percussion before then, but agreed with him and said she would talk to a musician friend of hers that night at work. She just always associated the drums with Finn, it hadn't occurred to her that she should find someone to play the drums on his song.

"Thank you so much Noah. You have no idea what your help means to me."

"Hey, what are friends for? Besides, I kind of like feeling like I'm better at something than you," he laughed, enjoying his friend's improved mood. She was so easy to tease.

"Don't push it, mister," Rachel tried to sound stern, but she really was grateful. "I'll see you in a week. Call me if you need anything or plans change or anything. Thanks again."

~.~.~.~.~.~

Puck dropped his phone onto the bed and quickly followed it. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and exhaled deeply. Sometimes he wanted to grab Rachel and Finn, both of them, and shake them. What the hell were they doing? How could they not realize that they had the best thing he had ever seen? And now they were on the brink of letting it fall apart over what, long hours and insecurities? Hell no, not on his watch. He had considered moving up his trip so that he could get there right away and move this thing along a little faster in case they couldn't handle it on their own. But he should have known Rachel would have a plan, Rachel always had a plan for everything. And her plan was actually better than Finn's. Well, it was more practical at least, and much faster, which Puck considered better, under the circumstances.

Puck didn't talk to anyone about his feelings toward the Hudsons, not even the Hudsons. And he certainly wouldn't admit that they were the reason he never kept a girlfriend, even since graduating high school, when he was supposed to have 'grown up.' Yeah, they were his best friends, and that was part of his need to help them fix things. But there was more to it than that. He had never known a couple like them. Growing up with a single mom and a deadbeat dad, he didn't have high expectations for relationships to begin with. Then as he got older, he watched more couples completely screw up their lives by screwing each other over. And of course, there had been his own interactions with girls, Quinn in particular. Getting his best friend's girlfriend pregnant then working with her to cover up the truth for several months, only to end up estranged from his friend and giving the baby away, was not exactly his best moment.

Then there was Finn and Rachel. They certainly weren't perfect, not by any means. They kept secrets and lied and fought over the most ridiculous things. They even broke up and found other partners a couple times. But through it all, neither of them ever said a bad word about the other, and Rachel was a better person when she was with Finn. She was less annoying and uptight, and nicer, and just better. And Finn was always, even when he was 'with' Quinn, always looking at Rachel with that goofy lopsided grin that only she got out of him. It took a somewhat dysfunctional teenage couple to make Puck believe that maybe sometimes a relationship could work. Then they graduated from high school, and against all odds, made it through a year with her at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and him at Ohio State. When he transferred to a small college in New York to be with her, their friends started taking bets on how long it would be before she was pregnant and they were both dropping out of school and moving back to Lima. The only thing was, none of that happened. They got married and got an apartment together, and still both graduated college in four years. Rachel had started getting chorus line parts on Broadway before graduation, and Finn took over the music store he had been working at part time, eventually buying the store when his former boss decided to sell and spend his retirement years traveling the country. When the Hudsons came home for their first Christmas out of college, sharing all their good news with their friends and family, Puck realized that they were no longer the dysfunctional teenage couple who had given him hope. They had become an actual adult couple with a life and responsibilities, still completely in love and totally meant for one another.

Puck thought about what the two of them had shared with him over the past three days and he realized that the reason he was so affected by what they were going through was because they were the model couple. Finn and Rachel were meant to be together. Puck couldn't stand the thought that there was a chance that those two, of all people, might not be able to make it. If they couldn't make it work, Puck had no hope of believing there would ever be a chance for him to have a worthwhile relationship.

Ok, who recognized the line/phrase I borrowed from my favorite Glee guest star (although the line wasn't used on Glee)?